How to Encourage Parent Involvement in School

Parent engagement in schools improves student achievement, reduces absenteeism, and restores parents’ confidence in their children’s education. Neil Matthews gives tips on how schools can encourage parent involvement:

• Building a strong partnership
• Involving parents in learning
• Empowering parents in the learning process
• Utilizing the skills, experiences, careers of parents
• Ensuring parents have a ‘voice’

The following transcript is auto-generated from Youtube

hello I’m Neil Matthews on the principle
of James Wellington Academy I’ll Cal
when we consider how we can enrich our
classrooms for engaging with our parents
the starting point must be building
positive and strong relationships with
our families teachers need to know their
students exceptionally well and must get
to know their families in order to
provide support and guidance as the year
progresses it’s important that we share
the right information with parents that
they they they are informed about how
well their child is doing and their
future targets and that we communicate
with our families on a regular basis
that there is two-way communication to
ensure that parents are fully informed
and involved in their child’s learning
parents need to be involved in their
child’s learning and be part of that
three-way partnership it’s great to
invite parents into class to work
alongside their child in different
activities – to hear children read take
part in school trips and visits and and
the many events that happen throughout
the school year as part of the school
calendar there are many different
approaches of teaching and learning
today than there were 20 or 30 years ago
and the way that students are taught
today very different to the ways that
their parents were taught and so it’s
really important that we support parents
in the different approaches to teaching
and learning through engagement
workshops inviting parents to come into
class and to see the different ways in
which children are taught today learning
in the classroom must have a purpose and
one of the great ways that learning can
be brought to life for our children is
by inviting their parents into class to
talk about their experiences the
opportunities they’ve had through life
and to learn about the careers that they
have is a great way of giving they’re
giving children’s learning a real
purpose and connecting what they’re
doing in the classroom to some of the
future careers that they may well have
in order for students and a school to be
really successful it’s vitally important
that parents have a voice and they feel
that they’re able to contribute to the
continued development of a school no
school is perfect and there are many
things that schools can do to
continually improve and by engaging with
parents and inviting them to give
their thoughts and contributions on
school improvement strategies and
different ideas parents can feel
empowered and given responsibility for
the future improvement of a school